House Committee Ends Guaranteed Funding for Transit: Breaks Commitment to Bus and Rail Dating Back to the Reagan Administration

February 3, 2012

Contact: Ron Thaniel, [email protected], 202-510-0740

“The U.S. House of Representatives Ways & Means Committee today abolished the guaranteed trust fund revenue for transit and gave it to the highway program. This is a unprecedented departure from bipartisan support for a unified surface transportation program,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City Transportation Commissioner and National Association of City Transportation Officials President. “Funding for bus and rail projects would be catch-as-catch-can, jeopardizing thousands of jobs and undermining progress in modernizing our transportation system.”

The House Ways and Means legislation, H.R. 3864, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Financing Act, ends the trust fund for transit originally crafted by the Reagan administration. For the past thirty years, Congress has provided dedicated funding for highway and transit programs through an excise tax on gasoline dedicated to the Highway Trust Fund. This funding structure has successfully provided highway and transit programs with secure, dedicated revenues.

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